Page 16 of Roses Are Dead
I scanned the room, figuring out quickly that the two lumpy towel-covered shapes on the counter were where that fresh bread smell came from.
My dick got hard. Sue me.
Carl might have a cook, but it was the best kind, not the drug-dealer-serial-killer kind.
“Are we alone?” I eyed the bread. I bet if I held a hand over the fabric, there’d be heat emanating from the covered loaves.
“Yeah.”
Really now? Lying right out of the gate? Carl, Carl, Carl… shame on you.
I played along. “Cool. Turn that shit off and sit with me in the living room. This might take a bit.”
Carl sucked on his cheek. Odds were, he was biting the inside to keep from telling me off.
For incentive, I reached inside my vest and casually took out my gun. I walked into the living room and plopped my ass on the couch. Then, set the gun on the armrest where it was inches from my fingers.
Taking a bit of comfort from the fact that I hadn’t just killed him outright, Carl smiled and took the hard-backed chair across from me, rather than the recliner. Smart.
“I heard a rumor,” I said.
The corner of Carl’s mouth went up. “Rumors are generally good for business.”
Some were, so I nodded, but added, “Some are bad. Like hearing you got dropped off at your house by a cop.”
The tense line of his brows relaxed, he leaned back in the chair, losing a bit of the stiff posture he’d held as he sat down. “That was my guy on the inside. I wrecked my car.”
“I don’t give a fuck who it was or why. You spooked a few people.”
He laughed. Downright guffawed.
I was exactly three inches away from killing him, and he thought what I stated was funny.
“Anyone who didn’t understand who dropped me off, deserves to be spooked.”
Was that a threat?
Or was it an insult?
“Like I said, I heard a rumor. But maybe I need to spell things out.” I leaned forward and placed my hand on the gun.
The smile fell off his face. “Proceed.”
The command was issued as if he were in charge here.
Fuck that. “Eight grand and silence.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s what you owe us for the last drop. It also is the amount of difference between where you peaked at three months ago, and where your orders are at now. You’re down to sixteen grand in one month from us. Not twenty-four. And not a damn word why.” I got a little more comfortable. “And I know that the local boys run at least thirty K. Now, that’s just one group. This area is good for forty-six thousand a month, but last month, our cut went down. I know consumption isn’t. Before we get to the second part of what you owe, who is pissing in our territory?”
Carl’s posture stiffened again. “Everyone.”
His answer was a buzzkill, despite it being a known problem. Solving the decline in our reputation and our business was a delicate path. We couldn’t do either of the things we needed to do, which were knock heads and seize control, because honestly? We were getting out. But we really had to make sure it was on our terms not on someone else’s. Otherwise, we’d never survive the fall.
“Everyone’s wrong.”
Carl studied me. “Perhaps.”
